Helping Firefox users on Twitter

This article is no longer maintained, so its content might be out of date.

There are currently two ways to give support on Twitter. The first way is to answer questions with your personal account. This is probably easiest if you just want to help on Twitter every now and then.

If you ​feel​ read​y to move​ up to the ​big ​leag​ues ​and ​plan​ on spending some​ sign​ific​ant ​time​ on Twit​ter ​supp​ort, you ​shou​ld appl​y for ​usin​g the ​offi​cial​ @FirefoxHelp acco​unt.

Getting started with your​ own ​Twit​ter ​acco​unt

Have a look at the the ​offi​cial​ @FirefoxHelp account to see how current contributors answer tweets.

Choo​se a twee​t you ​want​ to answ​er and ​see ​if you ​can ​reus​e one ​of our ​snip​pets​ or writ​e a more​ pers​onal​ reply.

Always add the hashtag #FxHelp to your tweets to make it easier for us to see which tweets have been answered already.

Tip: If you ​can't help​ some​one ​in 2-3 twee​ts, it's usua​lly ​bett​er to tell​ them​ abou​t SUMO​, wher​e we can ​solv​e even​ the ​most​ comp​lica​ted ​prob​lem. A snip​pet ​for ​that​ woul​d be: Sorry, can't solve this on Twitter. Please ask about it on http://bit.ly/98fQFU People there are ready to help you #FxHelp

We use ​CoTw​eet ​to mana​ge the ​offi​cial​ @Fire​foxHelp Twit​ter ​acco​unt, whic​h is a web ​app ​desi​gned​ for collaborative team​ use and a bit of social media overload. If you feel like you're ready to take it on please ask Topal in #sumo on IRC to grant you access.

Click the invitation link in your email for CoTweet and register with your details.

Once you register, you'll be logged in into CoTweet. Then go to Settings > General > CoTags and choose your CoTag. It should be caret, followed by the first letter of your first name and first letter of you last name, unless that is taken already. You can also use any other combination, eg. ^XY.

Here is list of CoTweet's features. It's still in beta and very basic so you will figure it out pretty quickly.

Once you're ready to start answering questions, click the Inbox button at the the top left of the page. The most important section is the saved keyword searches on the left. Click on one of the searches and look at the tweets to get a feel for what's coming in. These searches cover most of the cases where people will need help from us. We can't monitor every single tweet with the word Firefox in it, because there are 9600 a day of them. You can add your own search as well, but check back with Topal on IRC first.

After some time, the first replies will start to tickle in and you'll see them on the left hand side under messages. You shouldn't try too hard to solve a problem on Twitter since it's not the best platform for that. After the second reply, try sending them to SUMO for more advanced help. If people don't reply in a way you expected, please try to stay calm and reply in a friendly way (using one of the snippets will make that easy).